This is an excerpt from a report made to the Aviation Safety Reporting System. The narrative is written by the pilot, rather than FAA or NTSB officials. To maintain anonymity, many details, such as aircraft model or airport, are often scrubbed from the reports.
The unreliable AWOS at Cleburne Regional Airport (KCPT) in Texas led me to believe that the haziness I saw was less of a factor than it became.
I was looking at the haziness in the dark before dawn. Before driving to the airport, the weather data online showed VFR for Cleburne and airfields to the west. IFR conditions existed at airfields east.
Within a few minutes of dawn was when I began my taxi to the runway. Using the aircraft radio to check the current AWOS on taxi the conditions were said to be 4 nm visibility with ceiling missing.
Immediately after takeoff, at approximately 100 feet AGL, I found myself in IMC with occasional visual contact with terrain.
I went to instruments and weighed options.
I felt my choices were: Climb to cope, confess and request guidance for a return for landing, or remain in visual contact, stay low and use my ForeFlight for orientation and return to land.
I am very familiar with the terrain and features at Cleburne, so elected to stay low.
My aircraft is not equipped for precision approaches nor am I qualified to do them. I stayed at 200 feet AGL for a lap in the pattern and returned for an uneventful landing.
Later in the morning I learned from the mechanic at the field that the AWOS is notoriously unreliable.
I had a discussion with the airport manager. I was informed that the AWOS system is scheduled for replacement as soon as they can get through red tape with the city for funding.
Primary Problem: Airport
ACN: 2088875
AWOS here at Kahn is unreliable for winds, comically so in fact. Kwdr, to our west, has had the addendum “winds are unreliable” on their AWOS-3 for ten years.
Trees grow around the senses, block wind, etc…typical FAA do nothingness causes airport managing authorities to..do nothing.
It’s really not a big deal…..until it is.
I’m an instrument rated private pilot and stay current as I fly weekly in the NW where departures and arrivals are IMC alny time from Oct to May. I’ve lost 8 friends in the past 40 years due to lack of currency on the part of the IFR rated pilot. What this guy did was way too foolish and risky and will catch up with him some day.
I’m glad he safely landed without incident. Something sounds a little fishy in this NASA report though. Since the pilot saw the “haziness in the darkness before dawn”, it would seem he’d have been able to see an overcast, or even a cloud hanging over the runway, as he taxied out at dawn.
As they say, better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air…
AWOS is and has been only advisory, never gospel. It is no different than a set of fuel gauges (except fuel gauges are required to be accurate when the tanks are empty). Humans were made with the expectation of using their brains and appurtenances and not a reliance on external gadgets (which are supposed to be aids for making decisions.) Your CFI’s original advise to “keep your head out of the cockpit” applies here as well.
A known unreliable AWOS should be taken off the air until fixed or replaced, and notamed as such. Why would anyone in authority allow knowingly incorrect information to be disseminated, when it can adversely affect safety of flight?
ALL AWOS can only be accurate in the immediate vicinity of itself, not is spaces remote from them (meaning even outside of a few yards away. An airport can have a thick overcast above it, but with a hole over the AWOS and that AWOS can still report Ceiling above 12000)
I think if you’re going to write for a media platform that positions itself as a place to find articles on aviation related subjects, you need to actually write the article. If my high school student son turned this in for his journalism class assignment, he would have been accused of either using AI to do the writing for him, or told that maybe Twitter [X] is the better choice to express his brevity, lack of detail, and absence of reader engagement. Perhaps the article is meant as a parable, where a pilot can put in the least effort possible to plan a flight and survive, so too can a journalist…until they don’t. Work harder.
This is an excerpt from the Aviation Safety Reporting System. We didn’t write it, the pilot who experienced the event wrote it.
…and apparently, the pilot was not a Harvard University journalism graduate…with a Master of Liberal Arts (A.L.M.). Perhaps NASA should raise its ‘submission’ standards?
Just sayin’
Primary problem: Pilot
If the ceiling is missing with other area airports IFR why would you think it was VFR and not use other avenues to determine the ceiling?
Reality has a habit of changing faster than technology can record it. It tells you what happened, but after the fact.
I’ve taxied for VFR takeoff racing a solid overcast at 100 agl moving in at 15 mph.